Dental Malpractice

[wayne1978]

Hi Guys
I have relocated to Canada with my family and I hope you all are enjoying warm weather in Finland wherever you are.
A little guidance is requested from you and your opinion on this matter.
My wife had her root canal fixed from a Dentist in kauppatori area of Turku back in January 2014. She felt pain today and the dentist took an x-ray and found that the procedure was not done correctly. The dentist said doing a root canal is expensive and doing a re-root canal due to infectious is even more expensive. She said either to remove the infected teeth and after sometime doing a dental implant which would cost about $3000 or do a re-root canal which may or may not work. She said that the infection is not new and it has spread over the years. The dentist asked who was the idiot that did this to you, you should take legal action for malpractice because it was clearly a case of negligence and poor workmanship. My wife informed her.She was disappointed a little saying Finland provides one of the best healthcare in the world and it is unfortunate that this happened to my wife.
I do not know about my legal position. The patient ombudsman has a two year time limit to raise a complaint. A lawyer in Finland will not take my case on legal aid because we are no more residents of Finland. Will a medical opinion expressed in Canada be acceptable in Finland? Are there any conditional fees agreement type lawyers in Finland?(Like no win no fees lawyers)

Your suggestions will be highly appreciated.
Best Regards
Wayne

[Piet]

Hi Guys
I have relocated to Canada with my family and I hope you all are enjoying warm weather in Finland wherever you are.
A little guidance is requested from you and your opinion on this matter.
My wife had her root canal fixed from a Dentist in kauppatori area of Turku back in January 2014. She felt pain today and the dentist took an x-ray and found that the procedure was not done correctly. The dentist said doing a root canal is expensive and doing a re-root canal due to infectious is even more expensive. She said either to remove the infected teeth and after sometime doing a dental implant which would cost about $3000 or do a re-root canal which may or may not work. She said that the infection is not new and it has spread over the years. The dentist asked who was the idiot that did this to you, you should take legal action for malpractice because it was clearly a case of negligence and poor workmanship. My wife informed her.She was disappointed a little saying Finland provides one of the best healthcare in the world and it is unfortunate that this happened to my wife.
I do not know about my legal position. The patient ombudsman has a two year time limit to raise a complaint. A lawyer in Finland will not take my case on legal aid because we are no more residents of Finland. Will a medical opinion expressed in Canada be acceptable in Finland? Are there any conditional fees agreement type lawyers in Finland?(Like no win no fees lawyers)

Your suggestions will be highly appreciated.
Best Regards
Wayne

I think it will be hard to prove now after 3 years, but lets say you manage to do that, it will be very costly, there is no way you can get a court case for this for free, and if you lose you also have to pay the legal fees of the other party (but there are exceptions on that last rule).
And you are right about not getting free legal assistance.
Finland has for these kind of matters for sure no "no cure no pay" lawyers if any for any other matters at all (at least I didn't find them yet and trust me I searched a lot).

By the way, maybe you have another option that is more cheap, I have no idea of prices in Canada any more (moved away more than 30 years ago), but maybe a bridge instead of an implant is cheaper (if the tooth is in between two other ones).

But it really sucks I know.

I have had the same issue with a dentist before I moved to Finland, he made a mistake and due to that mistake my front tooth (crown) fell out when biting little over cooked ruisleipä with cheese from microwave.
I called my former dentist and confronted him with that, he said to come back and he would fix it (idiot, plane ticket costs 3x more), I had it fixed in Finland for 70 euros (little cleaning and some glue ), two months later I got a bill from my former health insurance that I had to pay for that same tooth repair from my former dentist, a bill of 600 euro's while that same dentist told me I was covered for this. He also had charged me for a gold one while he placed a ceramic one...(le voyou).
I posted several reviews about his malpractice on several forums on the internet and after a month he called me in Finland with the request to remove those posts, I agreed if he would pay the bill to my former health insurance. I did not ask him to pay for the 70 euro's, which was a bargain anyway. He complained it was not his mistake, but I argued the difference, eventually he paid and I removed the posts on the forums...Internet can be a powerful tool.
Hint hint.